Campaigns Wikia talk:Neutral Point of View
I strongly disagree. Politics cannot be NPOV, and I don't believe we should only allow the views of those with "secular western culture". Nkayesmith 06:15, 21 August 2006 (UTC) :I think NPOV should be used for things like background information and cold, hard facts (i.e., no weasel words). The pro and con things can be as POVed as they want (yes, that doesn't make sense). So, basically my idea is: NPOV for proven/provable facts, APOV for opinions. Sound good? Jfingers88 02:30, 22 August 2006 (UTC) ::I agree. --Nkayesmith 21:58, 22 August 2006 (UTC) The word "secular" just disappeared from the article. I think that this is an important word, and the the description is not accurate without it. Non-secular western culture includes some very dogmatic religions with much narrower ideas of open-mindedness and fairness that are not compatible with one another, much less an attempt at neutrality. I'm not going to revert this straight-away, but I'd like to hear some opinions. --whosawhatsis? 03:14, 22 August 2006 (UTC) :Ah. I believe our religious friend Lou removed that word. Jfing[[Wikipedia:User:Jfingers88/Esperanza|'e']]rs88 03:48, 22 August 2006 (UTC) ::I wasn't going to say it, but yes, it was Lou. He made a spelling correction along with its removal. Thoughts on reinstating it? --whosawhatsis? 03:52, 22 August 2006 (UTC) :::It is your proposal. You can word it anyway that you want to. I just thought that the word didn't belong in the sentence. To specify secular is to exclude a big chunk of western culture. That changes the debate about abortion, homosexual "marriage", and many other issues that millions of people care about because of their religious convictions. ::::My proposal? If you look at the history of the article, you'll see that I haven't yet made a single edit. How is this my proposal? --whosawhatsis? 23:21, 22 August 2006 (UTC) :::An NPOV policy makes some sense for an encyclopedia, but this site should encourage POV. This site is more like the op-ed page than an encyclopedia. :::I don't support this proposed policy. For one thing, "calling for all sides of a disagreement to be represented" gives wacky minority groups like The Green Party and the LaRouchites too much ink. All sides can have a say, but the reality is that it doesn't matter much what the Natural Law Party thinks. The meaningful debate is between the parties that actually have the power to act, and they are the ones that should get the most coverage. Lou franklin 04:54, 22 August 2006 (UTC) ::::I agree that NPOV should not call for all sides to be represented equally. (It's quite ironic that Whosawhatsis has similar concerns about my policy.) If the specific groups is a minority, they should naturally not get as much representation as the community grows, regardless of systematic bias. However, the policy does not say equally. It needs to be reworded. --Nkayesmith 21:58, 22 August 2006 (UTC) :::::Being fair to a group while using NPOV and trying to represent their POV when you do not share it are two very different things, even if you have the best intentions. When doing so without good intentions, it can be quite the opposite. --whosawhatsis? 23:21, 22 August 2006 (UTC) ::::It's pretty clear at this point that Campaigns Wikia will not be purely NPOV, but that doesn't mean that NPOV doesn't have a place here. Secular context doesn't exclude those with religious beliefs, it just means that issues are not presented in the context of those beliefs. Our government is (supposedly) secular because of separation of church and state, but that doesn't mean that church-goers (or even clergy) don't get a vote. Secularity is not absence of religion, it is independence of religion. --whosawhatsis? 05:11, 22 August 2006 (UTC) :::::Perhaps you should define your intended meaning in the article. :::::I see your point, but what is wrong with Wikipedia's NPOV? Wikipedia says no: :::::* Class bias, including bias favoring one social class and bias ignoring social or class divisions. :::::* Commercial bias, including advertising, coverage of political campaigns in such a way as to favor corporate interests, and the reporting of issues to favor the interests of the owners of the news media. :::::* Ethnic or racial bias, including racism, nationalism and regionalism. :::::* Gender bias, including sexism and heteronormativity. :::::* Geographical bias which may for example describe a dispute as it is conducted in one country without knowing that the dispute is framed differently elsewhere. :::::* Nationalistic bias: favoring the interests or views of a particular nation. :::::* Political bias, including bias in favor of or against a particular political party, policy or candidate. :::::* Religious bias, including bias in which one religious viewpoint is given preference over others. :::::This is what you mean by secular, I think :::::* Sensationalism, which is bias in favor of the exceptional over the ordinary. This includes the practice whereby exceptional news may be overemphasized, distorted or fabricated to boost commercial ratings. :::::And that is what I'd want to see for the fact, or background tabs. :::::--Nkayesmith 21:47, 22 August 2006 (UTC) ::::::Nothing's wrong with it. I think there are a lot of improvements to the current definition in there. Why don't you add those to the main article (minus the aside about my use of the term "secular")? --whosawhatsis? 23:21, 22 August 2006 (UTC) :::::Although POV should be encouraged in most articles, I think NPOV could be useful for Background pages of the tabbed templates. The idea is to present a brief summary of the debate, before the reader dives into the war of positions and opinions. --ШΔLÐSΣИ 13:10, 22 August 2006 (UTC) Wacky minority groups... Lou, you mentioned that you don't think that the Green Party or LarouchePAC should be given too much ink. I'm curious what objections you have to these groups that you would single them out. I know the 10 principle statements of the Green Party. And I appreciate the research that Lyndon's people have available. I don't think either side has much of a chance against the D's or R's, but I think that's because we do our best to silence them in national debates. I don't think we can or should prevent them from using this site and describing their platforms and values. Do you? Chadlupkes 22:04, 22 August 2006 (UTC) I agree. These things will happen naturally, and we should not repress any group. A minority group will start as a minority. If the ideas are accepted here, then the section will naturally expand. We should do our best to represnt all sides of the story. --Nkayesmith 22:14, 22 August 2006 (UTC) As I understand it, giving less "ink" to minority opinions is one of the things that Campaigns Wikia was created to combat. --whosawhatsis? 23:21, 22 August 2006 (UTC) :I am from Massachusetts. The candidates for Governor here last time were Mitt Romney, the Republican (who won), and Shannon O'Brien, the Democrat. :Somebody decided that other candidates from the wacky minority parties would be allowed equal time at one of the debates. Bad call. :So they included Carla Howell, the Libertarian candidate; an Independent candidate, Barbara Johnson; the Green Party candidate, Jill Stein; and I think there was also a candidate from the "flush your vote down the toilet party". Here they all are http://www.fraternizing.org/barb/ph0902/ph100924.jpg :No matter what question was asked of the Libertarian candidate, she answered "small government is beautiful" over and over again. The kooky Independent candidate, Barbara Johnson (whose web site was entitled "BJ for GOVERNOR" http://www.barbforgovernor.com/barb/), rambled on endlessly, and the Green Party candidate was no better. :The only candidates that mattered were the Republican and the Democrat, but they couldn't get a word in edgewise. The voters were deprived of the chance to evaluate the real candidates. Debate about important political issues was replaced by meaningless chatter by candidates that had zero chance of getting elected. It was the strangest debate I have ever seen, and the least worthwhile. :That should not be the model for this site. :The debate in Washington about illegal immigration, for example, is happening between the Republicans and the Democrats. The Rainbow Party's position on the issue affects nobody. Ultimately we need to decide if this site should be devoted to the issues that affect people, or devoted to airing the opinions of any Tom, Dick, or Harry who starts The Eggplant Party and stands out in front of the bus station with a sign. Lou franklin 03:41, 24 August 2006 (UTC) ::ROFL!!! Ok, after I can breathe again, I'll try and come up with an answer. Chadlupkes 03:58, 24 August 2006 (UTC) :::Ok, I completely agree that we should not follow that debate model for this site. So how do we prevent it? If a libertarian candidate for a state level office comes along and puts up a page describing their positions and inviting comment (see Dick Clark), how should we handle it? My preference would be for someone active here and living in or near that district to contact the campaigns that are running against him, and invite them to post their own information as well. I don't think discouraging anyone from posting is the right way to go. :::You've hit the nail on the head by saying that we want to devoted to the issues that affect people. But that means we need everyone's contributions to come up with workable solutions that we can all live with. People will come and contribute or not as they choose. And the site will grow in the direction supported by the people who come to post. I don't represent everyone on the progressive side of things anymore than you represent all conservatives. "We're all in this together" may be a corny catch-phrase, but it's also the truth. We all live on this planet in a finite environment, and either we want to continue trying to compete in ways that destroy or start to cooperate in ways that build. That's the fundamental choice that we have, as individuals, as nations and as a world. Chadlupkes 01:28, 25 August 2006 (UTC) ::So what you're saying is that if you don't fit one of two cookie cutters, take both the "damn liberal press" and the "conservative propaganda machine" with a grain of salt and stick to your own beliefs rather than choosing the lesser of two evils, you shouldn't have a voice? It's possible that this particular libertarian had some sort of mental defect, but the Libertarian party defines itself as social liberals and economic conservatives, which means that they agree with either Democrats or Republicans on nearly all issues. They would be perfectly happy with Democrat and Republican representatives if they could elect them for social and economic issues separately (and if representatives were elected that way, the libertarian position would win out at least 75% of the time). Clearly, that makes them insane kooks who should be ignored completely. --whosawhatsis? 04:58, 24 August 2006 (UTC) ::Lou, I think we should give some time and space to everyone, especially since we hope to become a major part of participatory politics and want to show all sides of the issues. Sure you may have "wacky" minority party politicians, but that doesn't mean there isn't a really good candidate somewhere else. If we're going to have information on elections, we're going to have a list of all the candidates, not just the Democrats and Republicans. If people want to click on a third party person (once we start filling up candidate info pages), they will be able to do so at their own free will. The don't have to; they could skip them over and go straight to the Democrats and/or Republicans, as was not the case at the debate you mentioned. That is the beauty of participatory politics: to be able to know who is running and what they stand for, no matter what their party is or what your party is. If you help out with building candidate pages, you don't have to do the third party candidates if you don't want. You are choosing how much you want to participate and on what you're going to do it. Jfing[[Wikipedia:User:Jfingers88/Esperanza|'e']]rs88 11:12, 24 August 2006 (UTC)